My name is Tyr Bensen. I am a current junior at the University of Central Florida, majoring in Emerging Media: Character Animation.

I am originally from Long Island, New York. However, I’ve had a complicated journey with moving much like my relationship with art. I moved to Washington State when I was 13, and then to Wyoming when I was 17. Although I have always been passionate about art, I wound up focusing on STEM when I first attended University of Wyoming. I started with Physics, then switched to Computer Science, and then mathematics. I wound up taking a break when I was 20 after changing my major twice because I felt lost with what to do. During this break, I moved to Florida for the Disney college program, and it helped me immensely. The program taught me so much about how to connect with people all over the world, improve my communication and teamwork skills, as well as reinvigorate my passion for art. I fell back in love with what I’ve always loved since I was young: animation. This led to me staying in Florida to pursue character animation with UCF. It has been an honor to be accepted and become a member of the character animation program here.

Although it hasn’t always been easy, I am excited to see where the future takes me as well as how I continue to improve.